1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and to a process unit that is detachably provided to this image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image forming apparatus, such as a copier, printer, facsimile machine, or apparatus combining these, the process unit system may be adopted, in which cases in which are accommodated process means such as an image carrier, charging unit, developing device or toner accommodating unit are detachably provided with respect to the main body of the image forming apparatus. In this system, the user can easily replace these process units when maintenance of these process units is required.
Consequently, in such a process unit system, a mechanism for mounting/detaching of these process units with respect to the main body of the image forming apparatus is provided. However, there were the problems that ease of mounting/detachment by the conventional mounting/detachment mechanism and/or the precision of positional location thereof with respect to the main body of the image forming apparatus were low.
Technologies relating to the present invention are disclosed in, e.g., Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-272838.